


Oneiromancy

by kerlin



Category: Alias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sydney faces her demons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oneiromancy

Every new city means a new set of dreams.

They are grouped in themes, her nighttime wanderings. They are symphonies with movements circling around a central leitmotif.

In Reykjavik, the contrast of white ice and snow with the perpetual darkness of the winter sun mean she sleeps with the light on in her hotel room. So it is only logical that when she closes her eyes, she immediately opens them again in her sunny apartment: pre-fire, pre-Covenant, and pre-betrayal. Francie is baking for a visit to her parents’ later that night, Will is sneaking finger-swipes of cookie dough, and Sydney is curled up in the crook of her couch, reading Alice in Wonderland. The details are different from night to night (sometimes they are playing Scrabble; sometimes they are sharing sangria and lemon poppyseed cake) but Iceland is a place she leaves with a small amount of regret.

But the trail takes her to Rome, a city whose history weighs down on her. She stays in her (Julia’s – but also hers) penthouse and cannot escape the nightmares. Julia kills, fucks, eats, and sleeps all with the same mechanical stoicism behind false passion, and Sydney slowly dies inside. Every time she closes her eyes to the looming angel statue she opens them again behind the hilt of a knife, the sight of a sniper rifle, the thin line of a garotte twisted in her hands.

St. Petersburg cannot help but remind her of her mother, and the reasons for her journey. So she tries not to sleep much, but when she does, she is back in the marble corridor, her hand pressed up against cold glass as her mother plans a betrayal. Sometimes Sydney can see the plot behind her mother’s eyes, and sometimes she sees only what the six-year old girl wanted to see: a loving mother who knew just how to braid her hair, just how to make her believe that her life could be everything would be what she wanted it to be, and just how to make her father smile.

It isn’t until Moscow that she dreams of Vaughn, and of all the memories she has of her (ex?) lover, none of the good ones choose to make an appearance in her dreams. He is beaten, bloody, scarred, and broken. He lies helpless in a hospital bed, and even when she has not directly wielded the weapon he is there because of her, and his eyes tell her that. He drinks himself into oblivion, he marries Lauren, he kills Lauren, and then he kisses Sydney and they both taste nothing but regret.

And she runs, and keeps running, and keeps dreaming. It is almost a relief to find her mother’s body, because her nights after the makeshift funeral are filled with nothing but the blessed void of unconsciousness.


End file.
